C&L’s Conover Kennard recently reported on how Shadow President Elon Musk and his minions have infiltrated and taken over government systems and have begun locking out the people actually qualified to run them. Some of Musk’s installed flunkies are so young and inexperienced that Wired decided against naming them.
The New Republic’s Greg Sargent explains why it’s so dangerous to allow Musk’s unelected, unqualified and over-entitled hands to monkey around with our Treasury Department.
First, via The Washington Post:
Typically only a small number of career officials control Treasury’s payment systems. Run by the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, the sensitive systems control the flow of more than $6 trillion annually to households, businesses and more nationwide. Tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people across the country rely on the systems, which are responsible for distributing Social Security and Medicare benefits, salaries for federal personnel, payments to government contractors and grant recipients and tax refunds, among tens of thousands of other functions.
That’s right, Musk now has his Nazi-saluting mitts on our tax refunds, Social Security, Medicare benefits and the full faith and credit of the U.S. government. That includes important levers to avoid defaulting on the U.S. debt.
At the risk of sounding melodramatic, this looks a lot more like a plan to sabotage U.S. finances than a plan to increase government efficiency, Musk’s ostensible job in the White House.
Via Sargent:
“Anybody who would have access to these systems is in a position to turn off funding selectively,” said Michael Linden, a former OMB official who is now director of Families Over Billionaires, a group fighting Trump’s tax cuts for the rich. “The only reason Musk wants to get himself in there must be because he wants to turn some things off.”
Sargent also points out the need to know whether Trump has approved this likely sabotage or if Musk has gone rogue.
These are definitely questions the press should be asking.
It’s even more important for the Democrats to start shouting as loudly as possible about it. MAGA world is already cheerleading Musk’s interference by pretending he is a corruption fighter.
I’ve already written about how deeply unpopular Musk and his antics are: Only about 10% of American adults think it’s a good thing for Trump to rely on billionaires for advice on government policy; only 29% approve of Trump creating Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE); and only 36% have a favorable view of Musk.
Maybe you could do something with that information, Dems?
